


Strangers In The Cold

by PinkLetterDay



Series: Coldflash vs Olivarry polyam AU [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Bad decisions with good outcomes, Gratuitous Banter, Gratuitous Smut, M/M, One Night Stand, pre-series AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 02:53:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13157727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkLetterDay/pseuds/PinkLetterDay
Summary: Nineteen-year-old Barry Allen is trying to drown the ghosts of his Christmas past in some (slightly illegal) alcohol when a beautiful, obnoxious stranger invades his table without so much as a by-your-leave...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of my Coldflash vs Olivarry polyam AU series, preceding Come Find Me.
> 
> Note: Now translated to German by the amazing Future_serial_killer! See linked works.

  
_"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, and the very next day you gave it away..."_

The whole point of coming to a dive bar, Barry thought sourly, was to get the fuck _away_  from Christmas cheer. He had not accounted for the fact that even the city's seedy underbelly seemed obliged to pay lip service to tinsel, kistchy multi-colored lights, and God forbid, Wham!

He fatalistically contemplated the somewhat suspect contents of his glass, then took another sip and grimaced. It did not taste any better now than it had when he had sat down with it.

"You know, if you're out to drown your sorrows, a finger of whiskey isn't going to do much even if you faceplant in it."

The voice was entirely too unfamiliar to be taking such a familiar tone with him and Barry looked up from his glass in irritation to tell him so, but then...wow.

Six feet, buzz cut black hair, ice blue eyes and a face carved by Michaelangelo. Jesus. Barry hadn't discovered he was bi until last year, but he realized he had definitely found his type in men.

 _Not that he looked remotely like...him. Except for the build and the beauty. This man was much older for one, clearly in his thirties. Even his eyes were blue like flint, not blue like_...anyway.

The stranger was smirking now and Barry also realized that he was gaping like a fish. He quickly closed his mouth in embarrassment and returned to his drink.

 _Be cool, Allen_. "Who says I'm trying to drown anything?" He retorted with dignity.

"Well, you're drinking alone and your face looks like a puppy that got left at the shelter," shrugged the stranger. "But you've been sipping at an inch of whiskey for ten minutes so maybe you don't actually want to be drinking."

Okay, gorgeous or no, this guy had no business telling him what he wanted out of life. He was not a puppy but a...well...mostly grown man. With a fake ID.

"And you're my guardian angel, here to rescue me from poor life choices?" asked Barry snidely.

"Hardly," the stranger drawled, sliding onto the stool across from him. What the hell. Who said he could do that? "I just came in here for a drink to see the place was packed. And you are hogging a whole table by yourself, not even drinking, while I don't have a place to put down my beer." He accentuated his point by setting his sweating bottle down between them.

Barry sputtered in indignation and considered telling this asshole, "You're an asshole" but he was about twice his size, and the last thing he had energy for was a fight and...he really did not want to be drinking alone.

"Well that's good that you asked first,"  he said instead, "It would have been pretty rude if you had just insulted me and plunked yourself down."

The stranger simply smirked at him in and took a long pull of his beer. Barry's eyes involuntarily travelled to the line of his neck, those plush lips wrapped around the mouth of the bottle, the way his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed... _get it together Allen, God._

Of course the stranger had seen him looking. Barry tensed but his smirk just grew wider.

"So," he leaned forward casually so that his head was less than a foot apart from Barry's. "What's an underage boy like you doing in a place like this?"

Barry scowled. "Not underage. I'm in college."

"Old enough to vote, but I doubt you purchased that legally," the man gestured at Barry's still full glass.

He didn't even try to deny it. This was a college town, fake IDs were a dime a dozen and he was well aware that he had a face that was...challenged in maturity. Maybe that was why no one took him seriously about anything. Joe certainly hadn't. _You need to grow up and face reality, son_. Barry's morose mood returned.

"The law can be wrong." He gripped his shot glass, staring fiercely into the amber liquid.

"I'll drink to that," the stranger leaned back and saluted with his bottle. "I believe it was Dickens who said "the law is an ass'"

"It is," said Barry vehemently. Then felt a stab of guilt at the thought of Joe. "I mean, sometimes," he amended, sullenly.

"Ah. Not about to throw in with the criminal element then." 

"No," said Barry quietly, "I just think...sometimes the law doesn't take everything into account."

The man quirked an elegant brow. "Such as?"

Barry hunched his shoulders and picked at his napkin. "That things aren't always what they seem. " He continued, almost to himself, "legal doesn't mean right. Sometimes, doing the right thing isn't always legal.."

He came back to himself and looked up self-consciously to find intent eyes on him. "I see that college has been teaching you a lot," the man said. "Although possibly not what your parents are paying your tuition for."

"Scholarship," Barry retorted. "My foster father is only paying my room and board."

"Good for you." Why did he seem to make even compliments sound sarcastic? "Academically gifted intellectual thinker of your generation. Yet still brooding into his perfectly good whiskey."

"I'm not brooding," said Barry sourly. "I'm...celebrating."

"Ah. Your Christmas parties must be very popular," he deadpanned. "What are we celebrating then?"

Maybe it was because Mariah Carey had just followed Wham! on the radio but Barry suddenly felt like nothing mattered anymore. He was overtaken by an impulsive recklessness. "I'm celebrating the one year anniversary of my rejection."

Because why the hell not. Bars were invented to inconvenience strangers with embarrassingly personal sob stories? according to the movies.

"Mazel tov. That's certainly a long time to be moping," said the asshole, "I admire your dedication."

Barry glared at him. "She is - was the love of my life," he said sullenly "I've loved her for at least ten years."

"Right out of the womb then," snarked The Asshole, and yeah, that remark earned him the capitalization.

"Polite _and_  hilarious. You _are_  a catch."

The corner of The Asshole's mouth turned up in an almost-grin and Barry kind of hated the thrill of satisfaction that coursed through him at the sight. He had solved the age old nerd conundrum of why girls fell for jerks. Sex appeal clearly trampled over self-respect.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Sam," he lied, because Joe West hadn't raised a fool, no matter what he thought.

The Asshole snorted. "Sure you are."

Barry tilted his chin defiantly. "I don't need to ask yours. I've already given you one."

"Oh?"

"Starts with A, ends with hole." So much for not antagonizing a potentially dangerous stranger.

Asshole didn't seem antagonized. There was a definite flash of a grin, ruthlessly smothered. Shame. Barry really wanted to see the full effect, asshole or no.

 _Ok. Let's not go down that road, Allen. For one thing, lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. Just because an incredibly hot guy picked you up once doesn't make you a sex magnet._  

And if it did...well it hadn't ended well last time.

"So _Sam_ " said Asshole, "Tell me about this lifelong love of yours."

No. He might be feeling like dirt and hate Iris a little right now but he wasn't giving her away to some obnoxious sneering stranger in a bar. She was too precious. He wasn't sharing what he felt for her with anyone ever again, in fact. Being destroyed once was enough.

"Nothing to tell," he shrugged with forced nonchalance, "she didn't feel the same way. Had a falling out with her Dad too. I went off to college. Christmases are awkward now."

"Getting turned down by a girl is one thing," allowed Asshole. "Managing to piss off her father is somewhat over-achieving. Didn't think you were a good influence on his little girl?"

Barry actually had tried hard not to consider what Joe may have thought about his feelings for Iris. He instead held on to the fact that whatever else, Joe loved him too. "Never told him," he shrugged again. "Her Dad's my foster father. We had a fight about my life direction."

Asshole blinked. "Let me get this straight. You're in love with your _sister_?"

"She's not my sister!" Barry exclaimed. He hated, _hated_  when people referred to them as foster siblings, hated having to feel like having feelings for a girl he had loved since before his parents were taken from him was somehow dirty and wrong, hated thinking that maybe Joe and Iris herself expected him to be her brother. "You know what, why am I talking to you -" He didnt need to defend his feelings to some random jerk in a bar -

"Whoa kid, slow down." Asshole actually laid his hand on Barry's arm as he tried to get up from the table, arrested him in place. He stared at the graceful fingers wrapped lightly around his forearm. "I see I hit a nerve. I'm not judging, believe me." He seemed oddly sincere. Barry sat down.

Asshole looked at him contemplatively for long enough that Barry began to feel foolish about his outburst. When the older man finally spoke, his tone was surprisingly soft.

"When you're in the system," he eyes intent on Barry's, "it tries to pre-define your relationships with other people and impose them on you, just because you have to live with them. They tell you who your parents are supposed to be, who your siblings are, who you're supposed to turn to for help. But people don't work like that. You get to define what your relationships mean. It's all just another bunch of bullshit rules."

Barry felt like a fly caught in the stranger's intense blue gaze. His breath caught in his throat and his pulse quickened, but more than that was the odd feeling of kinship he felt with this man, who seemed to really understand what it was to be small and powerless.

"Yeah," he breathed, finally looking away. "It's all just a bunch of bullshit rules." He took swallow of whiskey for the lack of anything to do with his hands. It burned a little on the way down, and Barry was proud of not coughing.

"Glad we cleared that up," the stranger leaned back on his chair and also took another pull of his beer. Barry thought somehow that he hadn't meant to open up that much either.

"What about you?" Barry asked. It was only polite. "Why are you drinking alone?"

"Alone?" snorted Asshole. "What are you then? A dramatic bar stool?"

Barry ignored the jibe. "You came here to drink alone, though."

"Sometimes a man just needs to get away from other people before a justifiable stabbing occurs," said Asshole. "Sometimes a man does want a celebratory drink all by himself. Sometimes those reasons coincide."

Barry considered this. "So you're pissed off at people, but you're happy about it?"

Asshole huffed a laugh. "More like, I pissed a lot of people off and it was a job well done."

"I can see how you'd be very good at your job," said Barry. "My career counsellor always told me to choose a field that suited both my talent and ambition."  
  
Asshole was clearly biting the inside of his cheek in amusement. Another thrill ran up Barry's spine. "And you, Sam. How is your ambition working out for you?"

"I had two." _Get Dad out of prison. Marry Iris_. "Now one seems to be off the table." There was another dull stab of pain in Barry's chest.

"The girl," Asshole nods in understanding. "Ambition should have no truck with feelings, Sam. One is to do with you. The other relies on other people. In the end, the only person you can truly trust is you."

"Well that's...cold," said Barry, taken aback.

"Perhaps I am," Asshole said without rancor. "But I'm not the one trying to find the meaning of life at the bottom of a whiskey glass here."

"Touché," Barry conceded sarcastically. "You have the soul of a poet."

"I don't believe in souls."

"Wow. I wonder what kind of people come to _your_ Christmas parties."

An odd, sharp gash of a smile slid across Asshole's face. "The very, very bad kind."

Barry again had that feeling of being some form of small prey ensnared by something with very sharp teeth. It should have frightened him. Instead it seemed to make his blood run further south. He flushed and looked away, taking another sip of his drink.

_Don't even think about it. We're not doing this again._

There was a silence that seemed somehow expectant.

 _We're_ not.

"There are ways to mend broken hearts other than with alcohol, you know," said his companion, his face unreadable. "I never went to college myself but I keep hearing that it's a place for experimentation."

Barry suddenly felt his whole body tingling, hardening in his jeans. _No. Down boy. Bad penis. Very bad._

He decided to play dumb in case he was getting his wires severely crossed. "If you mean weed, it turns out I'm allergic. And yeah, that was fun finding that out. I'm not really into drugs and partying."

Asshole was still looking at him like he was an interesting science experiment. "And the other thing?"

Barry's body went awash in heat so suddenly was like being dunked in warm apple pie. _Oh my God no way this is happening again_. "Sex?" Asshole inclined his head for Barry to continue. "Um. I tried that. Once. This summer."

"Did you? And how was it?"

"Well it was," _pretty fucking amazing_ , "pretty good, actually."

"Ah."

"But then he died."

Asshole looked incredulously at him and Barry started laughing. Yes, this was his life.

"You seem to have recovered."

"No, I mean. I only knew him for less than twelve hours." Less than twelve of the most intensely pleasurable hours of his life. "We went our separate ways. Two months later I find out he died in a boating accident. It's...I'm not actually sure how to process it."

This was an understatement. Part of the reason he had never told anyone was because he wasn't sure how to explain that he couldn't get himself off to the memory of the best and only sexual experience of his life, because every time he tried, he kept remembering that the hands and mouth that had pleasured him so intimately were now cold and dead at the bottom of the ocean.

"Jesus, kid."

"Yeah," He slumped in his seat and blew air through his cheeks, ruffling his bangs. "After a while I started to think - maybe it's me."

"What, like your dick is cursed?"

"More like my ass." What was Barry's mouth doing and when had it become detached from his brain? Not only had he just outed himself to this complete stranger, said stranger now knew more about his sexual history than anyone in his life.

Not that anyone in his life even knew he was bi or that he'd lost his virginity. Gay virginity no less.

Gayginity?

His companion did not seem privy to Barry's half-hysterical musings. He simply nodded, as though filing away the fact that Barry had only ever bottomed as important information.

"You know that something happening once doesn't constitute a pattern, right? There are things in the world that happen regardless of your existence?"

"I'm not an idiot," Barry met the older man's amused expression with an unimpressed one. "It's just fucked up, is all."

"But you're still afraid." Asshole nodded almost sympathetically.

Barry shrugged. "I guess."

"I could help you not be afraid."

_Is this really happening again?_

"Oh? And how is that?"

"I think you know."

So. This is a thing that is happening again. He should have remembered that that proverb about the lightning was a scientific fallacy.

Apparently he, Barry Allen, was catnip for beautiful blue-eyed obnoxious older men who liked beer. And twinks.

"Do you usually play sex therapist with college students in bars, or is this a way of giving back to the community during the holiday season?" When in doubt, build a wall of snark.

"I don't usually go for guys your age," Asshole inclined his head in concession, "but it's hardly an act of charity. I don't think you quite know your own allure, Sam."

"I have allure now?" Apparently his pale scrawny nerd ass did have some mysterious allure for this to have happened a second time. "Is that why you've been annoyingly sarcastic at me since you sat down?"

"And here I thought we were having some quality banter. I didnt hear you objecting."

"No." This time Barry met that even gaze head on so the man couldn't mistake his meaning. "I wouldnt object."

"I sense a "but."

"The "but" was the whole conversation that came before. I'm weird, fucked up and I won't have any idea what I'm doing."

"Well, unless your former paramour did some _very_  questionable things, you must have _some_  idea."

 _Flesh slapping against flesh, the strange, painfully sweet burn, lips and teeth on his throat sparking electricity down his chest._  "I know what it's supposed to be like," Barry ruthlessly stamped out the flare of arousal. "But I wouldn't know what to do in the driver's seat."

"Fortunately for you, I like to drive." The Stranger leaned forward, smooth as a cat (one could no longer call someone they might possibly be having sex with Asshole) "So what do you say?"

Barry tried to ignore the discomfort in his jeans and his hardening nipples to ponder this. "You could be a serial killer?"

"Did that concern you before as well?" 

It had, fleetingly. But Barry had been a very horny virgin then, ambushed by a gorgeous older boy. He had not exactly been thinking with the right head. "Touché. It's still not a good idea though."

"No it isn't," the Stranger admitted but his voice pure smoke and whiskey. "But sometimes bad ideas are the best ones."

_Sparkling blue eyes. A cheesy, confident grin. "Wanna get out of here?"_

Some risks were worth taking, whatever Joe thought.

"Point," said Barry, revelling in his own recklessness. "Then I guess there's just one more thing."

"Which is?"

"Don't die."

Barry had tried to make it sound glib and off-hand but had obviously failed by the way the Stranger's expression softened. It was startling how that arrogant marble face could look kind and almost vulnerable. 

And then he smiled. A genuine, small smile that made Barry's heart stutter and his bones feel liquid. This was ridiculous.

"I'll try my best. Personally I'm very much against dying, myself. It's a bad habit to get into."

"Okay." said Barry, but inside he was a tumult of emotion and he knew he didn't exactly have a poker face. Eagerness and desire warred with fear and uncertainty, but he would not back out once he had committed.

Stranger looked almost gently at him and reached out a hand to trace Barry's jawline. His fingers were long and beautiful and Barry's skin tingled where he touched him, eyelids growing heavy with want.

He realized wanted those hands touching him all over his body.

"Look at me," Barry obeyed that smoke-and-whiskey whisper as if in a dream and was caught again in the spearing blue. "I'm going to take you to my motel room at the Clarion. And then I'm going to undress you slowly and take every beautiful inch of you apart.

But I'm not going to hurt you. And we can stop any time you want. I'm not into non-consenting partners. Do you understand?"

_"Sshh Barry. I'm going to take care of you." Gentle lips and strong arms around him. "You tell me and I'll stop. You're so good for me, pretty boy."_

Barry wondered what the Stranger made of the sudden sadness that washed over him as he turned his face into the warmth of the man's hand.

"Yes." He held the Stranger's gaze and brushed his lips over his thumb. "I understand."

***

The winter chill was biting even through their coats as they walked away from the glow of the bar's Christmas lights of the bar to the darkness of the parking lot. The snow that crunched underfoot seemed loud in Barry's ears, along with the pounding of his heart. He was really doing this. Again.

He was either the luckiest sonuvabitch on the planet or the stupidest.

"So, um," Barry stammered as they got in the stranger's car, "what do I call you?"

"I'm registered at the inn under Michael Lincoln."

"Is that your real name?"

"No," he snorted, buckling in.

Barry suddenly felt daring. He ran his hand over the Stranger's thigh and put his mouth by his ear. "Let me rephrase that for you," he whispered, letting want turn his voice rough. "What name do you want me to call out when you're fucking me?"

The man's eyes were dark and hot under the fan of lashes when he turned to him. He pulled Barry toward him by the nape of his neck and brought that cupid bow mouth so close to his that Barry could almost feel his lips against his own.

"Leonard," he breathed into his mouth. "Call me Len." And captured Barry's mouth in a searing kiss.

 

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here there be smut. And a dragon.

  
Barry barely noticed the hotel or where he was going as he trailed after Leonard. His whole body was hot and tingling, there was a frenetic buzzing underneath his skin; he didn't dare touch the other man until he had walked into the room and taken off his coat. And then he was on him.  
  
He hadn't imagined, when the beautiful stranger had led him from the bar, that he would be the aggressor of this encounter, but he was. Leonard's body was hard and firm against him, his heady scent evoking cinnamon and spiced liquers. Barry felt drunk on it as he ravished Len's mouth to seek out the taste, his skin burning where those graceful hands burrowed under his clothes to peel them off.  
  
"So eager," breathed Len, as he pulled Barry's head back by his hair to suck kisses on the column of his throat. "So needy." Barry whimpered, too aroused to feel embarrassed, falling forward to rut against him frantically.  
  
"Please, Len," he groaned in relief as the older man pressed a leg between his thighs and grabbed his ass cheeks, kneading hard through the denim, "I won't - oh God - I won't last."  
  
"Let's take the edge off then, shall we?" Len murmured in his ear and then Barry was on his back on the bed staring at the ceiling while Len divested him of his jeans and boxers. It was exquisite relief when his flushed, aching cock sprang free, already pearling precum. The hurried crinkle of a condom wrapper, a tight latex sheathe over his length, and then it was engulfed in the heat of Len's mouth.  
  
Barry could only jerk and keen and scrabble at the sheets as he was assiduously sucked, licked and fondled. Len kept a firm grip on his dick but his other hand roamed possessively over his body; it felt just as good as Barry had imagined when it played with his nipples and raked blunt nails over his flesh. He came in Len's mouth within minutes, fist between his teeth and toes curling off the floor.  
  
Leonard pulled his shirt over his head and shucked his pants as Barry watched, half-lidded and hazy. The room was dark except for the harsh luminescence of the blue neon motel sign outside, casting the planes of the man's pleasingly hard, firm body in marble and ice. He looked more than ever like David come to life, except much more beautiful because Michelangelo could not have given his creation those deep searching eyes.  
  
He turned away to drape his clothes neatly over a chair and Barry was momentarily arrested by the tattoo of a large dragon curling on the man's lower back, a fantasical beast whose scales seemed to be made of interlocked steel plates. It was a three-dimensional masterpiece that wound over his side, tail snaking over his abdomen, the mouth snarling at the world from the small of his back, coiled to strike. Barry involuntarily leaned forward to touch it but then Len turned back around and slid his briefs over his legs and -  
  
Well. Wow. That was... a proportionately much larger package than David's, thought Barry, staring at the proud cock jutting out from dark thatch of hair framed by the V of Len's hip bones. Equal parts excitement and trepidation warred within him at the thought of that girth sheathing itself inside him.  
  
"That's um," he tried, "that's big."  
  
Len's loomed above him, smirk predatory. "Don't worry," he whispered. "We'll make it fit."  
  
He kept his promise.  
  
A while later found Barry again on his back, legs folded and wantonly spread apart, holding his own cheeks open for Len to work lubed fingers inside his hole like a feast served for him alone. His piercing eyes never wavered from Barry's face which burned with a humiliation steeped in arousal, clearly deriving an almost sadistic pleasure from his discomfort.

He found himself deliriously chanting Len's name over and over like a prayer while the man methodically took him apart at the seams with his teeth and tongue, those amazing fingers moving insistently inside him. All other thought had been driven from his mind, Len's name was the only word he knew by the time the man deigned to withdraw his fourth finger ("Take it for me, pretty boy. I need you ready") and flipped him over onto his stomach, propping a pillow under his canting hips.  
  
He keened with relief when the blunt head of Len's cock pressed carefully against his pucker and the thick, hard, pulsing length _finally_ pushed inside him. Its impressive girth made it diffcult to breathe at first, but the burn only sharpened his need and Len's hands and voice coaxed his hole to suck it inside greedily to the base, filling and stretching him exactly the way he had been craving since the first time he had been fucked months ago. Barry thought he might be forever addicted after this, to this feeling of being impaled and filled up until his heart juddered in his throat.  
  
He could only sob into the mattress as Len nailed his prostate mercilessly with every thrust, balls slapping hard against his ass, bruises blooming on his hips under Len's fingers. Pleasure irradiated throughout his every nerve ending, so keen it was almost painful, as Len _used_ him to chase his own completion. Nothing had ever felt this impossibly deep, this full, this _good_ and if Len ever stopped he would die.  
  
He barely needed Len's hand to stroke him before he fell over the precipice, a cresting wave so intense that he almost whited out.  
  
***  
  
Still later, after cleaning up in the bathroom, they lolled around in bed, hands wandering and lips exploring each other in pheromone-induced affection, talking in soft murmurs.  
  
Len's body was scribbled all over with scars, Barry discovered, pale lines writing a grim calligraphy over a slightly darker canvas, criss-crossing over the valleys of his bones and the raised veins in his muscles. They stood out almost luminescent against the icy glow of their bodies in the dim blue-washed light. The dragon was tattooed over the worst of it, hiding a mesh of mottled skin over the incline his spine, behind its lowering red stare. Barry cautiously ran the pads of his fingers over the textures of the man's skin while they both lay sprawled on their stomachs in a t-shape over the bed, trying not to think about the history of violence they inscribed.  
  
Their owner stared back at him over his shoulder, expression tinged with a faint hint of vulnerability. On Len, it suggested a cornered wolf, face caught between fear and bared teeth.  
  
"This is pretty awesome," Barry told the baleful dragon, tracing its awning mouth just over the dip in Len's back. "Did it hurt?"  
  
He turned on his side, the tattoo sliding away from Barry's fingers, half-smiling wryly down at him. "Like a motherfucker." The word seemed somehow incongruous on his tongue. "But some burns are sweet." He traced Barry's bottom lip with his thumb.

A mutual curiosity stretched unspoken between them for a long moment, until Barry snapped the thread of tension by belly-crawling up beside him.  
  
He arched his spine like a cat and stretched lazily, keenly aware of the appreciative gaze trailing his naked form. "I like your driving," he said, looking coyly at the other man through his lashes.  
  
Len smiled and rolled forward, flipping Barry onto his back and bracketing his body with his own. "You're not so bad yourself," he whispered over his mouth and kissed him slow and deep.  
  
A low heat began to simmer again in Barry's own belly. He smiled langorously against Len's lips, trailing his toes along the man's calves. "I want to go again."  
  
"Spoiled boy." Len chuckled and Barry nipped his chin in response. "You know I'm not nineteen anymore, right?"  
  
"I didn't mean right this minute," Barry deliberately rolled his hips underneath the other man's, eyes rolling back in his head at the feeling of their spent, sensitive cocks dragging against each other. Len dipped forward to nibble at his neck. "But we could just...mmmm...do this...until you're ready for round two?"  
  
"Depends," Len murmured. "What's in it for me?"  
  
Barry answered by flipping him over playfully in turn, pinning him with his weight. Eyes heavy-lidded, he held that hooded gaze as he let his mouth fall open, sliding himself slowly along the older man's broad, firm torso down to his crotch.  
  
"Do you even know what you're doing down there?" Len's voice was tinged in amusement.  
  
"No," Barry confessed, drawing the older man's hand to card into his hair, "but you said you liked to drive." He mouthed at the softened penis, eyes fixed boldly on Len's.  
  
Len smirked back and tightened his fingers in his hair.  
  
***  
  
It was sloppy and unskilled, but Len seemed to enjoy watching his cheeks hollow out around his cock, painting his wet lips with pre-cum. Barry revelled in the taste and heft of the pulsing thickness on his tongue. It became almost meditative, the near-painful pull of his hair, the rough slide of Len's slick shaft between his lips, the rhythmic ebb and flow of its invasion.  
  
He was panting and dazed by the time Len was ready, face stained in tears. His throat was raw and his dick hard with the arousal of having been _used_ again, but these were afterthoughts, his bones almost liquid with bliss, body heavy and open.  
  
Time moved like molasses the second time, warm, leisurely and sweet. Len pinned him to the bed by lax wrists and slipped his tongue into Barry's mouth. His body was completely pliant and welcoming, still loose and lubed from the time before when Len lifted his legs over his shoulders and pushed himself inside. Barry moaned brokenly in relief as he was once more filled so completely that he couldn't imagine ever being empty again.  
  
They moved face to face this time, Len jack-knifing Barry almost in half with every thrust. His fierce gaze once more never allowed Barry to look away, even through his lust-blown haze, pinning him as effectively as the bruisingly firm grip on his slick thighs.  
  
He was filled and utterly claimed, ghosts of past loves and lovers exorcised, feeling his partner's heartbeat in his own throat as Len drove harder and deeper inside him - and then a pulse of ecstasy from deep within his pelvis consumed him in a starburst and pulled him under.  
  
When he came to, he was covered with his own come and Len was poised above him, releasing his own orgasm onto Barry's chest and abdomen. A blissful satisfaction settled in his bones at the feeling of both their semen spilling over his skin. He dimly remembered liking this before ( _fingers dragging through their fluids on his chest_ ) but then Len fell forward over him, panting, and there was only now and the anchoring weight of Len's body on his.

***

  
"You're crying," said Len, looking at him with the small genuine smile that made him look so disarming. Barry became aware that his breath was still shuddering and the world was blurred through his tears.  
  
"Um yeah," he tried and failed to be embarrassed. "That happens." Apparently this was to be a regular post-sex occurrence, not just for the first time.  
  
He still felt extremely open and vulnerable, as though his orgasms had taken down all his emotional defences. His limbs were sated and languid with post-coital bliss and yet...he needed. He needed...  
  
_Strong arms around him. Lips against his cheek. "I got you."_  
  
A warm washcloth was moving over him. Barry looked down to see Len cleaning them both, his movements meticulous and as he wiped Barry's cleft and balls. He pressed a reassuring kiss to his cheek when he was done. "Hold on."

Len came back after finishing in the bathroom and surprised Barry by drawing him into his arms. Barry was certain that this was for his benefit because he doubted the older man was a cuddler by nature - but the hollowness in his chest disappeared as Len tucked his head on his shoulder and wrapped their arms and legs around each other.  
  
Secure in the other man's embrace, Barry smiled gratefully up at him to see Len looking down at him again with his favourite expression.  
  
"You look like a baby deer," he told him, and Barry basked in the affectionate tone.  
  
"I think you broke me," he sleepily burrowed against Len's neck.  
  
Leonard ran his hands over Barry's sides, lightly tickling, grinning impishly as he batted his hands away. "Nah. You seem intact."

Barry caught those hands in his own and brought them up to their chests to entwine their fingers together, uncertain whether this too was allowed. Len merely smiled and tightened his arm around him.

He stroked the drying moisture on Barry's cheekbone with his thumb while he drowsed against his shoulder, brushing his kiss-bitten mouth. Barry felt safe and sated and cocooned. His eyelids kept fluttering closed.  
  
"Sleep, pretty boy," he heard in smoke and whiskey, lips pressing against his hairline as he sank into sleep.  
  
_("You're so good for me, pretty boy")_  
  
***  
  
Barry knew Len was gone before he opened his eyes.  
  
He elected to not know it for a few minutes, relishing the soreness of his body and the heavy langor in his limbs. Len's cinnamon and spice scent still lingered in the air, deceptively reassuring. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the sinking sensation in his chest to stop, trying to trap the morning afterglow in the moment.  
  
He could be wrong. Len could be in the bathroom. Len might be sleeping next to him, arm flung over his head against the slivers of morning sun filtering through the blinds.  
  
It was stupid to want him to be there. Stupid to want to burrow back into the stranger's body heat and strong, scarred arms and capture that cupid bow mouth again. To want to hear the silky voice in a low murmur against his skin, banter with a thrilling hint of teeth.

Stupid, stupid,  _stupid._

 _Less than twelve hours, Allen. Every time. Jeez._  
  
It was with a feeling of déjà vu that he turned around to find the sheets beside him cold and a breakfast tray on the nightstand. 

There was even a note, again, next to the tray, although he was unamused to find his wallet placed over it. A cursory check found nothing missing. Len's idea of a life lesson then, in befittingly invasive fashion.  
  
_Sam_ , read the note, even though the stranger must have found his driving license.  
  
_Last night was one of the best I've had in a long while. You look beautiful when you come. Stop moping and give yourself to people who can make you feel good. There's more to life than disappointment._  
  
_I left you the complimentary breakfast. You're a growing boy, and I worked you hard._  
  
_I'm leaving the city tonight. Who knows, though. Maybe we'll meet again one day._  
  
_I strongly advise you to not make a habit of following older men of questionable virtue into hotel rooms. It's dangerous. I could have been a very bad man._  
  
_Take care, Pretty Boy._  
  
_Len._  
  
***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for Barry's virignity being taken by Oliver in a one night stand comes from Living Louder by lockhearted. That is so perfectly written that there is really no point in me writing another with the same premise, but I did want to explore the emotional ramfications on Barry of having the only person he'd slept with up and "die" on him. 
> 
> Leonard's dragon tattoo covering his scars is a homage to the amazing fic Cover Up by Lady Divine Coldflash . Len's collection of scars and his tattoo are now a firm headcanon for me. 
> 
> In this verse, this one night stand is the catalyst for Len and Barry's two year long "fling" and bookends its eventual end.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Strangers in the Cold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14003568) by [Captain_Cold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Cold/pseuds/Captain_Cold)




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